that we just got tonight. johnaul telling me that cruz gave him a sign letter. it was a little different. he said it says cruz will not run for re-election if he breaks his campaign promises which he lists in the letter. we're going to have much more on that. but in the meantime, have a wonderful weekend. it's time now for "anders der s cooper 360" starts right now. we begin tonight with hundreds of thousands of people in need right now, stuck without electricity, dealing with the destruction left behind by hurricane isaac. we know more tonight about those who lost their lives in the storm. tonight, there's breaking muse from mississippi where this have been fears that a dam could fail, threatening thousands of homes downriver in louisiana. emergency management officials say water is being pumped. but they don't know if it's going to be enough. in a few minutes, i'm going to speak with the executive director of the mississippi emergency management agency. first, i want you to take a look at these pictures.

it's a terrible deja vu for residents of louisiana. these are pictures we were showing seven years ago on cnn, tonight, seven years ago exactly. these are pictures from now. seven years later. a very different storm isaac was hitting different areas. but many cases similar destruction as seven years ago. isaac has now weakened to a tropical depression but was a cat 1 hurricane when it slammed into the gulf coast tuesday. flood warnings are in effect tonight for all of coastal louisiana and mississippi. more than half a million customers still don't have electricity, as i said in those states, and arkansas and alabama as well. mitt romney visited louisiana today to survey the damage. president's going to head there on monday. governor bobby jindal said both are welcome but there is no time for partisan politic, right now. the focus is on cleaning up. as floodwaters are starting to recede and revealing the extent of the damage. john czzarrella joins me.

explain where you are, what you're seeing. >> we're in the city of ammee in louisiana. thousands of people liveing nea the banks of tangipahoa were ordered to evacuate. there was fear a dam might break. as you mentioned, positive news to report tonight. they're pumping the water out of that lake and it appears that cutting a hole in the dam may no longer be necessary. this has just been one of the many lingering effects from hurricane isaac. hurricane isaac descended on louisiana tuesday night, nearly seven years to the day that hurricane katrina struck. isaac wasn't such a monster but it was still a killer. parked on top of louisiana, mississippi and parts of alabama. hundreds had to be rescued. >> what's it like back there now? >> sad.

water's over the top of the roof. we had to break through the ceiling. and gone through the attic. >> reporter: others weren't so lucky. the category 1 hurricane has claimed at least four lives in the u.s. and some, like jean oto were trapped in their own homes. >> right now, i'm in my attic with my wife and my year and a half old baby. the local police came around about 2:00 in the morning, told us the levee broke, and within an hour, the water was coming up. it looks like we lost everything. >> reporter: it's not over yet. the slow moving storm continues to wreak havoc. with heavy rainfall and flooding which overtopped the levee in new orleans. >> i have more daniel frmage fr storm than i did katrina. >> reporter: there was concern over a potential dam collapse. now officials say the dam holding back the swollen tangipahoa lake is not failing.

they will pump water to lease the pressure. the parish president ordered thousands to evacuate along the 54 miles that runs through the parish just in case. >> my concern is whether it's one person or if it's 50,000. a life is a life is a life. >> reporter: not everyone is listening. johnny womak sent his family to higher ground but he's not going anywhere. >> i ain't going nowhere, man. i been here -- i built that house myself and i ain't gonna leave and let somebody just take it from me. if he take it from me, at least i'm gonna see it go. >> reporter: isaac has left many with unsafe drinking water and more than 800,000 without power. not just in louisiana but mississippi, alabama and even arkansas. and it's not over yet. there's a chance of tornadoes as the region digs out from what

isacsaac left behind. >> a lot folks in mississippi feel they get shorted in terms of attention. you were in gulfport when the storm hit. what is -- and along coastal mississippi, what's it been like the last couple of days? >> well, anderson, they're still feeling the effects here. we've had rain every single day. the river here in some places is overwashing the road. there's still serious concerns of flooding. even if the dam does not give way. so the bottom line here in mississippi is they still have a tremendous amount of work to do. and before they can say that they're in the clear, certainly from the waters that are still rising in the tangipahoa river. >> glad you're there, appreciate the reporting. at least four people have died in the u.s. as a result of the storm, including a couple whose bodies were found in seven feet of water in a home in plaquemines parish. their names we should point out have not been released. cnn's brian todd was able to make it to the place where the couple was found. he got there by air boat.

it's the only way he could get there. he reports tonight on just how badly hit that entire area was. >> reporter: it's still almost unapproachable and dangerous. we have to navigate around seeping natural gas and down power lines just to get near it. this house is where the first two reported fatalities from isaac occurred. a couple trapped inside. urban truel, the fire chief here, knew them and had to pull their bodies out. do you think the couple had a chance to get out once the water started? >> the water came up so fast. we had a lot of emergency personnel that had a rough time getting out. so, so elderly couple, needing assistance, would have been very -- very tough to do. >> reporter: there may have been one opening. maybe. the couple was found floating in the kitchen of this house. the kitchen is around the other side of the house. we can't access that right now.

what we're told is the water levels at the time rescuers got here were about eight feet higher than they are right now, up to that attic vent right there. if the couple could have gotten to that possibly they could have gotten out. truel declined to identify the couple by name. he said the emergency officials got word to as many as possible when the levee overtopped. one of the neighbors tried to get the couple to leave but they wouldn't. now the only creatures are either amphibious or have to ride what's floating. we see homes that are flooded, buckled. the chief says one house floated about a mile from its foundation. bobby landry and seven others in his family stayed through the storm. he lost one house to hurricane katrina. then moved here and remodeled this one. now this. he and his family had to climb out windows as the water rose to the second floor. >> i feel empty. it hurts. >> reporter: bobby, do you want to come back and live here? >> this is great living right

here. this side of the river, right here, the people in this community are all tight, close. unfortunately, there's not enough of us. >> reporter: an exhausted fire chief is worried about more potential losses. >> it's not more that i want to see. hopefully it's the last ones we will see. we're checking the residents. we're hoping everybody made it out. >> brian todd joins us live from plaquemines parish. i remember seven years ago finding a family, a couple, their children, who had drowned, finding their bodies in their home. in wavelynn, mississippi, after hurricane katrina. i don't think a lot of people get the idea how quickly the water rises in the house. the idea of drowning in your own home, it is horrific. >> the chief told us the water just came on so fast once that levee was overtopped that these people really probably didn't have a chance. they tried -- the rescuers tried to get access through that water vent just to get to them. calleded in through that. there was no response.

it took them a while to get around the house to that kitchen area where they found the bodies floating. horrific to think about. >> this levee in plaquemines parric was outside the federal levee protection system. this was a locally maintained levee. there was money in the pipeline for it but the federal money -- hasn't been built yet, right? the. >> that's right, that's what the parish president told us. he said the money was in the pipe ryan. it had been approved. they had gotten into the bidding process when this happened. timing just could not have been worse. you just hear a lot of resentment from people inside that town. talking about how the money should have been there. the things should have been upgraded before this. but it just wasn't. >> brian todd, again, appreciate your reporting. back to our breaking news. as we said at the top of the program, mississippi dealing with the possibility, and it looks like it's a receding possibility, the need to breach a dam to alleviate pressure. evacuations have been ordered

downriver in louisiana. there's still a chance it can be avoided. joining me is the executive director of the emergency management agency. appreciate you being with us. the storm is threatening your state as we speak. what's your biggest concern at this point? >> anderson, i think the biggest concern we have, we still have some rising water in port river county. water's been going up all day. we've been evacuating citizens in subdivisions that werie isolated. my fear is citizens will let their guard down. we don't want them to return to areas that are unsafe. we will continue to work on the dam. we feel very confident tonight the plan we had in place is working. the level of the water was dropped over 2 foot by 2 1/2 foot since midnight last night. we're continuing to bring the water level down. the governor's adamant about making sure we don't just pack that dam but we're going to rebuild it. we're going to bring the water level down and redo the dam so we never have this problem again. >> this may be a dumb question.

i apologize in advance. is the water rising in pearl because rains are continuing there or some other reason? >> yeah, i think, anderson what we've got -- some places in mississippi, we had 18 inches of rain. on the gulf coast, we had a storm surge of 10 to 12 foot in places. but the water in the tributaries coming into the pearl river and others, inland mississippi, brought an enormous amount of river down in pearl river county and caused a lot of the flooding. we've got a lot of places in the county that we've never had before. >> in terms of that dam, john zarrella was saying it seems the need to kind of open up a hole in it, that's passed, yes? >> what we're going to do, anderson, we've got engineers from the corps of engineer, department of quality, equipment from the national guard that are working to bring the water down at a level that we can control. you know, we want to make sure we continue to bring the water level down and we're going to let it out a little bit at a time so we don't raise the water

level in tangipahoa river because i can tell you we're just as concerned about the few families we have in mississippi that are down stream as the 20,000 or 30,000 in tangipahoa parish. we'll do everything we can to protect the citizens. >> do you have the personnel you need? >> absolutely. we've got the personnel. we're working 24/7 to make sure we continue to do that. the plan the government put in place seems to be working. we're confident that it will. it does not appear to be any seepage in the levee at all. >> director robert latham, i know you've got your hands full and you must be exhausted. appreciate you taking the time to talk to us tonight. our best to everybody affected in mississippi and alabama and all throughout the region. let us know what you think. we're on facebook. follow me on twitte twitter, @andersoncooper. was the convention successful in getting its

message across to voters? we'll be right back. it. with the available lexus enform app suite, you can use opentable to make restaurant reservations. during the golden opportunity sales event, get great values on some of our newest models. this is the pursuit of perfection. starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news. ntgomery and t two aleve can keep pain away all day. abigail higgins had... ...a tree that bore the most rare and magical fruit. which provided for their every financial need. and then, in one blinding blink of an eye, their tree had given its last. but with their raymond james financial advisor, they had prepared for even the unthinkable. and they danced. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you.

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just as seriously: our commitment to america. bp supports nearly two-hundred-fifty thousand jobs in communities across the country. we hired three thousand people just last year. bp invests more in america than in any other country. in fact, over the last five years, no other energy company has invested more in the us than bp. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. today, our commitment to the gulf, and to america, has never been stronger. in raw politics tonight, taking stock of the events in tampa. for mitt romney, that may well be working class white voters. the romney campaign went all out. speaker after speaker talked about their parent's sacrifices and humble beginnings while

trying to get mileage out of an overarching theme that hard work should be respected. >> small businesspeople say they made it on their own. all they're saying is nobody else worked seven days a week in their place. nobody showed up in their place to open the door at 5:00 in the morning. nobody did their thinking and worrying and sweating for them. >> big government didn't build america. you built america. >> don't tell me that my parents didn't build their business. >> my dad was a bartender. >> my dad never made it through college. >> dad grew up in poverty. >> yes, mr. president, they did build it. >> that was a theme we heard a lot obviously. another subject, welfare. >> obama enables an entitlement society that says give me liberty and gimme gimme. why? because democrats depend on dependants. >> he believes in government

handouts and dependency. by waiving the work requirement for welfare. >> my working parents told me could i do better. they taught me i was as good as anybody else. and it never occurred to them to tell me i could just rest comfortableab and wait for good old uncle sugar to feed me, lead me and then bleed me. >> numerous times before, as have many fact checking organization, rick santorum's and others claim that president obama ended the work requirement for welfare is just incorrect. one of their posters said this week it's their most effective ad for voters. clearly they think it is resonating with voters they want to reach. the question tonight were republicans successful? joining me cnn political contributor republican strategist mary matalin. also democratic strategist paul begala who is also an adviser to

a pro-obama super pac. paul, i don't know how many news organizations and fact checking organizations have pointed out this -- these incorrect statements, these factually incorrect statements from the republicans about what the obama campaign, what the obama white house is doing about welfare reform. and yet they continue to hit this message hard. is it working for them? >> i suspect it is or they wouldn't be doing it. it's a bit of a character test for three different parties. the romney campaign, i think they failed the character test. there's a lot of good issues they could run on. but this is simply untrue. i don't like to use the "l" word. it's simply not true. it's a character test for the press. i think the press has done its job. i don't know how many times the press can report that governor romney is running an ad that's factually false but you all keep doing it. it's a character test for me and my fellow democrats too. will we take this or will we fight back? mitt romney actually loves people on welfare because he's

created so many. and in fact if you want to count up welfare, bain and company, which romney negotiated this bailout, it's a huge story in "rolling stone" yesterday about this bain and company took a $10 million federal bailout. that's corporate welfare. so i mean, you'd have to be on welfare in massachusetts for 328 years to get the amount of money bain and company got out of that bailout. my side's got to fight back on this and i hope we will. >> mary, we did hear a lot on this welfare argument. do you agree it is factually incorrect? >> i agree with the primary architect of it who said it violated the spirit and congressional intent and it was not done going through congress, it went around congress. and the up shot of it is it will relieve and reduce the work -- it reduces the work requirement. now -- >> wait a minute, your argument is a procedural one. the way he went about doing this was incorrect. and that's perhaps a valid argument you can make.

but that's not the same argument that's being made from the podium which is that he just wants to send you a check. that's what they're saying in these ads. to you believe he just wants to send out a check? >> and the reason -- anderson, the reason is because people don't understand the impact of process on policy. it sounds like gobbledygook to everybody out there. just like all the acronyms do. but the result is his waiver weakened the work requirement. and i really have to laugh -- i'm very amused at paul's self-righteousness. this is a party who called mitt romney, who's running for president of the united states, a felon. as someone who creates cancer in women. a vampire. somebody who abused his dog, dogs, who's waging a war on women. why this spot is resonating is because it comports with the reality that people are living. that there are two americas. one america is paying, is

producing and paying. and the other america is being paid not to produce. that's their reality with this endless unemployment benefit, and all of the transpfer payments. we have the greatest number of households dependent on some government largess today and people are reacting to it because we can't afford it anymore. >> before i get inundated by tweets saying i'm a toofl the obama white house, we have done plenty on -- you know are debby wass wasserman shuttltzshultz's inco statements on things. people on unemployment checks don't want to work, essentially what you're saying. there's a whole class of people getting these handouts. do you really believe that? >> that's not what i'm saying at all, anderson. no one would ever accuse you of being a stool for anybody. i was reacting to paul with his self-righteousness. he himself was the architect of

the most flagrant ad of the cycle, saying mitt romney caused cancer in some woman -- >> he didn't cause cancer. he did kill the man's health insurance policies. >> let's not argue that one. that was also pretty far out there, paul, so -- >> if you want to become an inference checker, you can become one. the facts of the ad are irrefusible. >> that's not true. >> it is true. >> it was misleading. it truncated the time line. it's like the movies that say based on a true story. you know it's not real. i lost my job and then my wife died. well, actually, she still had health insurance from her other job. i don't know why -- we've lost all -- >> yeah, we are, because you any why we're talking about this -- >> first off, on that ad, joe, the man in that ad, is a lot more fair to romney than romney was to him.

romney did a poor job managing it. instead of taking responsibility, he pushed the company into bankruptcy and made millions of dollars off it while canceling the health insurance for men and women who worked there. and that's what the ad said. that's what mr. soptic says and i stand behind it. governor romney got one of the same waivers that the ad is complaining about. is mitt romney undermining the welfare reform law? when he was governor and got one of the same waivers he's now complaining about in his ad? >> we're conflating two issues here and two philosophiephiloso. our philosophy is it is always more efficient and less costly and more effective to have the states be in charge of these programs. that's why paul ryan and mitt romney went ahead for entitlement reform. they want to block grants to the states. we do prefer waivers. we do prefer states to be in control of these mammoth programs the fed is forcing down

their throats. this was a process issue. we can bore your audience here. or we can say the spirit of that ad is absolutely true. and the spirit of what obama did was to reduce the work requirement. and that's why republicans are objecting to it. but it fits into a bigger narrative. which is what kind of country do we want to be? and we started out talking about the convention. that's what the difference is here. we want to be a country that grows the economy. not one that redistributes wealth and has class divisions and race divisions and gender divisions. >> do you really believe -- i mean, i guess -- i understand that rhetoric. do you really believe that the other side wants race divisions and class divisions and doesn't want to grow the economy? >> listen, if you're a hammer, everything is a nail, okay. if you're a liberal, everything is race, gender and class. and the flaw with that is several things. it's, one, there's a homogeniaty

in this group-think that every woman, every class, thinks the same way. they do not. also the fault of the static. when facts change, rational people change. they did like obama. they thought he was change in '08. he's been nothing but bad change. his recovery -- been worst than the recession. that's the fact. that's what the election's going to be responding to. >> i did a very bad job on moderating this. i apologize to both you. i got to leave it there. paul, thank you. mary, thank you. i want to bring in a blogger, andrew sullivan from the daily beast. andrewsullivan.com is his website. what do you make of what happened at the republican convention? you're a conservative. but you're supporting obama. you also wrote a really interesting article about what you think he needs to do next week. >> obama? >> obama to change the narrative. you think he actually needs to come much more to the middle. >> i think he's already in the middle but i think he needs to

make it much more explicit. i think the key thing he needs to do is persuade independents and people in the middle of the road that he's dead serious about the debt and paul ryan and mitt romney are not serious about the debt. >> you think the way to do that is by reembracing simpson/boels? >> yeah by saying what i want to did do is a grand compromise. get the democrats to agree to cut medicare and entitlements. get the republicans to agree to raise revenue. and if we can do that together, we can have a huge impact. also of course the british tax cuts will also help. whereas ryan wants to cut taxes, increase defense spending and isn't tackling medicare right now, only tackling medicare in 20 years time. and they won't balance the budget for 28 years according to the cbo. so i think obama needs to own tackling the debt. i think he needs to say we're going to have to make a call by the end of the year because we

have the bush tax cuts sun setting. i will compromise. will they? >> why do you think he did not pursue simpson/bowles? obviously paul ryan voted, did not want -- >> the whole point of bowles/simpson is you would have to get unanimity to get it into the congress. paul ryan stopped that. the reason he stopped that is because he opposed any tax revenue -- >> paul ryan will come back and say, look, i opposed it but then i came up with my own plan. president obama did not. >> he did come up with a plan. you look at his budget. it's all there. he does have a long-term plan. part of is the cost control curve, bend the cost curve in medicare, which is all in obama care which they're going to get rid of. they're going to get rid of -- romney and ryan -- the actual cost control mechanisms in the aca. and that's going to make cost controls go up. i don't -- i see all of this. i see cutting taxes, increasing

defense spending, going to war in iran. it feels like bush/cheney all over again. it's as if they don't have any memory of it. last week, the memory of the bush years was wiped. like an etch a sketch. from the republican mind. >> it's something actually james carville said last night which is nothing he heard last night -- everything could have been said by the bush administration in terms of -- all the rhetoric. >> i want a reporter to ask romney what do you disagree with bush on in his add years. what would you have done differently? and because you seem to be proposing exactly the same policies. and bush gave us the debt. obama just had to hand the debt in the middle of the recession. >> do you think romney -- there was a lot of talk this week about romney's need to kind of reintroduce himself or show his human side. do you think he did that? >> yes, i do. really effective in that sense. the evening was great. i loved the early testimonies to

his private charity. >> that couple who lost their son, was devastating. >> why they were shunted into the early evening, i don't know. i also thought the propaganda infomercial was really effective. and then we had clint eastwood on the stage with his empty chair. it was the most surreal thing i've ever seen in my life. all anybody's talking about today really is invisible obama. >> we're about to have a segment on it aswell. >> this is -- obama's right here, by the way, he's standing -- >> we're going to talk about this. "the new york times" reporter who actually talked to a lot -- talked to the romney people is they didn't vet a speech. they never actually asked him for his speech. >> here is romney, super control freak, right, always punctual. he was forced into -- 11:15 -- >> what about the argument that the democrats are waging class war?

now appealing to individual groups, shoring up, you know, his base as much as he can and basically dividing people? >> well, that's what every -- to some extent, what everybody does. the republican party's appealing to their evangelicals. they're climate change denial t denialists. >> that's what elections are? >> they appeal to that. when you're saying, look, we have got to cut the debt and everybody has to sacrifice, therefore, the rich who have done really well should pay a little bit more to help is class warfare. we have this -- romney, i agree with george w. bush, there, i didn't think i'd ever say that. here's what he said. i won't balance the budget on the backs of the poor. when you have a budget proposal which is entirely devoted to cutting only for the sick and the poor, i have a problem with that. when you're actually giving the wealthy and successful more money. that's just not just. i don't know -- i just don't understand how a catholic like

paul ryan can propose something that he's so hostile to catholic values and catholic teaching. >> andrewsullivan.com. andrew, thank you. appreciate it. it was probably the most bizarre moment at the republican convention. certainly at any convention. clint eastwood's conversation, performance, speech, to the empty chair. we're going to find out what actually led up to it. behind the scenes. reporter from "the new york times" joins us and gloria borger next. great shot.

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we're digging deeper tonight. what was by far one of the strangest moments probably ever at a political convention. we're talking of course about clint eastwood's speech last night in tampa. >> i wondered about, you know, when -- what? what do you want me to tell

romney? i can't tell him -- do that. can't do that to himself. you're crazy. you're absolutely crazy. i think -- you mentioned something about having a target date for bringing everybody home. and you give that target date. and i think mr. romney asked the only sensible question on it. he said, why are you giving the date out now? why don't you just bring them home tomorrow morning? i thought -- i thought yeah. there's a -- i'm not going to shut up. it's my turn. >> by the way, mitt romney's not advocating bringing the troops home right away. the whole thing sort of took on a life of its own online. it's been widely discussed today. the romney campaign probably tried to put a good face on it. joining me, chief political

analyst gloria borger and michael barbaro of "the new york times." trying to find out who was responsible. is anyone taking credit for clint eastwood's speech? >> a lot of people not taking a lot of credit. what we know is there are two key aides to governor romney who cleareded this. a whole lot of other people who thought it was a great idea entrusted those two people to vet it. what ended up happening, there really wasn't much of a plan. the plan was to trust a seasoned actor to deliver the kind of message they thought he had done very well in a previously endorsement and he decided to do something extremely creative. something like an ad-libbed sketch and a republican convention. those aren't two things you often put in the same sentence. >> right, every moment is so crafted in these conventions. >> that's right. >> so did they not know -- i mean, somebody put the chair there. so somebody knew. >> yeah, somebody, clint eastwood. at the very last minute we learned this afternoon in our reporting clint eastwood asked a

prop person just a couple minutes before he went on stage, could you get me a chair? i really do think people were taking in a completely live improvised show the likes of which we've never seen at any presidential convention. >> so as far as you've been able to find out, there was no practice and nobody actually like vetted a speech, asked eastwood to -- >> what we do know is they vetted every other speech. whether it was some hr person from the massachusetts governor's office or rick santorum, line by line. but there was no line by line to go through with eastwood. he was making it up as he went along. >> i want to play a little more of mr. eastwood's speech or performance, whatever you call it. >> i know even people in your own party are very disappointed you didn't close gitmo. i thought -- well, i think closing gitmo, why close that, we spent so much money on it. but i thought maybe it's an excuse -- oh, what do you mean shut up?

okay. i thought it was just because somebody had a stupid idea of trying terrorists in downtown new york city. maybe that will work. >> gloria, some romney supporters are saying, look, it played well in the hall. i've been getting tweets saying you liberals just don't get it or you in the elite media, you're making much ado about nothing. you said this was a complete embarrassment to the romney campaign. >> yeah, i think it was an embarrassment because they had spent the entire convention aimed at this sliver of voters who actually voted for president obama in 2008. are now disappointed with him. and might vote for mitt romney. this tone was distracting. it was very often crass. and it has become a diversion from mitt romney's speech which is of course what they want to be talking about all day today. instead of clint eastwood.

>> this was in prime time on many of the broadcast networks. what was not in prime time was that incredible couple whose son had died, who mitt romney had helped write the will and befriended. i certainly found that extraordinarily moving. that wasn't in prime time. instead, you had something like this in prime time. gloria. >> here you have clint eastwood, this sort of iconic director and actor, and so if you think of it from the point of view of the romney campaign, maybe they gave him some talking points or whatever, but it's hard to script someone who actually makes movies himself, and they'd heard him give a, you know, give an intro to romney before and they kind of liked it. so i could sort of see from their point of view -- >> i'm curious as -- >> -- they wouldn't have it -- >> i'm curious, as a director, i mean, what does clint eastwood think of his own performance just as a director? listen, gloria, thank you so

much. michael, thank you. up next, outrage over comments made by a priest about child sex abuse cases. seemingly blaming the victims. the backlash has been fierce.

a new york priest has sparked outrage for remarks he made about the sex abuse scandal. comments he gave this week to the national catholic register. reverend benedict groeschel said in a lot of sex abuse cases it was the teenage victim who was actually the seducer. he also said first-time priest sex offenders should not be imprisoned. he appeared to express sympathy for jerry sandusky, convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse. he now says he never intended to blame the victims. deborah feyerick reports. >> reporter: when father benedict groeschel celebrated his 50 years, he could not have anticipated the anger he'd face over his comments concerning priests and sexual abuse.

those comments have drawn fire from survivors and the new york arch diocese. the popular catholic author, radio host and tv figure known simply as father benedict, describing convicted serial pedophile jerry sandusky as this poor guy, before going on to defend predatory priests for blaming children for their own abuse. in his words, a lot of the cases, the youngster, 14, 16, 18, is the seducer. describing a father/child dynamic. saying, quote, they won't be planning to get into heavy duty sex but almost romantic, embracing, kissing. perhaps sleeping. but not having intercourse or anything like that. the archdiocese condemned child sexual abuse as a crime to be prosecuted fully. >> i'm with cnn. i was trying to find father groeschel. >> father's not -- he's not here. >> he's not. okay, thank you very much, ma'am. >> reporter: 78-year-old father benedict established this home

48 years ago to serve in part as a spiritual refuge for clergy. several priests accused of child abuse over the years have, according to news reports, sought sanctuary here and guidance from father benedict. a man answering the phone told us father benedict had recently fractured his leg and he would be away for about three months. the franciscan friars of renewal apologized for father benedict's comments defending his lifelong work and saying the comments were out of character. the comments in this week's national catholic register set off a firestorm. forcing an apology from the priest. who said, quote, my mind and my way expressing myself are not as clear as they used to be. >> i don't care whether you're senile or whether you may have had a hard day. the fact is, for you to say something like that tells me there are much, much deeper issues going on with you as the individual to try to justify something that is so horrific that has destroyed the lives of

so many children it. >> reporter: jeff gardere is a clinical psychologist. for an adult to think a child is seducing that adult, what's going on? >> this is the typical mind of a pedophile. where they intellectualize the relationship. and convince themselves that the child wants the sexuality. >> reporter: the national catholic register quickly removed the story from its website. a visitor looking for father benedict defended the aging clergyman. intelligent? >> yeah. >> reporter: thoughtful? >> yeah. >> reporter: reflective? >> yeah. >> reporter: surprising that he would seem to make comments defe defending priests who may be quote/unquote seduced by children? >> yeah. yeah. >> reporter: now, the franciscan friars say father benedict never intended to excuse the abuse. they say his physical and mental

health has been failing. why a man they consider so compassionate could have been so wrong on this, anderson. >> a guy who counseled priests for years. if this is what he, in fact, thinks, it's incredibly telling. deborah, appreciate the reporting. three people killed in an early morning shooting at a new jersey super market. why should saturday night have all the fun? get two times the points on dining in restaurants, with chase sapphire preferred.

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